“Think of the perfect design of a honeycomb or the certainty that if you plant a morning glory seed, a thistle will not grow in its stead. Call it science if you will, but in truth, it is magic as old as the earth itself.” She leaned forward and patted his hand. “Your grandmother—she taught you of these things, did she not? To tend, to transform, to heal?”
“She did.” He throat tightened, and not because of Mal’s manhandling. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about his grandmother since she died. His aunts, his mother’s sisters, hadn’t wanted to discuss her. They’d found her acerbic wit uncomfortable, and no wonder. She’d held them, and their obsession with social position, in total contempt.
Perhaps he should have denied it all, though, because Cassie peppered him with questions on everything from first aid remedies to his gardening methods. Bryce tried to remain calm and respectful, but he was beginning to think he’d be better off avoiding Mal and his crazy friends and sticking to his solitary life until his sabbatical ended and he went back to work in January.
“Well, you’ve a grounding, then, in some of the craft. But in all else you’re woefully ignorant.”
Bryce bristled. Ignorant? He had a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. A master’s in plant biology. A PhD in environmental science. Ignorant?
A low chuckle from behind him prevented Bryce from retorting. “A pisser, isn’t it?” Mal lounged against the dining room arch. “You thought you were so bloody smart, but Granny Two-Shoes says you don’t belong out of short pants.”
Bryce glared at him. “‘Short pants’? You’ve been watching too many costume dramas.”
Mal sauntered into the living room, no hint of his earlier instability. “No need to watch them, mate. I lived them.”
David bustled in from the kitchen, throwing Mal an exasperated look on his way past. “Don’t expect a straight answer from him, ever. Both his brothers are just as bad. I think it’s a fae thing.”
What? “‘Fey’? You mean gay? Not exactly politically correct anymore, is it?” Or maybe it was. He’d be the first to admit his street smarts were lacking.
David chuckled. “As it happens, all three of them are gay—at least I’ve only ever heard about male partners—but I don’t mean f-e-y. I mean f-a-e.”
“Right. Delusional. All of you.”
Cassie clapped her hands, one sharp crack. “We’ve wasted time enough.” She pulled a small pot out of her handbag. “Come here, boy.”
“I don’t think—”
David patted his arm. “I know you think you still have a choice, but you really don’t. You might as well give in and get on with it.”
Bryce glanced between him and Cassie, avoiding Mal’s amused gaze. “Get on with what?”
“Your new life, boyo. Or maybe it’s the old one you mislaid for a decade or two.”
Bryce sighed and approached Cassie. Anything to escape these people and get back to his house and water samples and his statistics and his— God, he was boring.
She pointed imperiously to the floor at her feet until he got the picture and knelt, ignoring Mal’s evil grin. She unscrewed the lid on the little pot, and immediately he was back in Gran’s kitchen, stirring the pot on the stove while she added a pinch of this and a paper of that, telling him as she did so what each herb was for. What it would do. How it would work with the others in the concoction.
“This is your destiny. You clearly have the Gift, though not all do, regardless of heritage. Your grandmother must have seen it, since she chose you as her apprentice. She would have done this for you when you crossed the first threshold of manhood, had she been alive to do it. Close your eyes.”
He glanced at David and Mal. “Uh . . .”
“Just do it,” David said. “You’ll feel terrific after.”
Mal draped an arm across his brother-in-law’s shoulders. “I think that’s my line.”
Part of Bryce, the part that craved the stability of logic and predictable results, argued that there was nothing beyond the observable, measurable world. But the other part, the part that had been astonished by the way a pea sprout uncurled from warmed soil, or awed by how a flock of starlings in flight folded like silk through the air—that part whispered, What if?
He closed his eyes.
She smoothed the salve on his eyelids and it tingled, but not with the burn of a muscle balm. More . . . effervescent, as if it were the medicinal equivalent of champagne. He touched his eyelids, but felt nothing other than his skin. No residue. I wonder how she managed that.
“Open your eyes.” Cassie’s voice had lost its resonance, but he felt compelled to obey nonetheless, and when he did—
“Oh.”
Cassie was no longer a frail old woman—or rather, she was still an old woman, but frail? Hardly. A brilliant aura surrounded her, easily twice her size, seething with what Bryce recognized as sheer power. Beneath her sternum, the place Gran called the wee center, a flame burned bright and gold.
He turned to David. His aura wasn’t as spectacular, but another sort of power curled around his glowing blue center, like a dragon of amber and amethyst. He took a deep breath and turned to Mal.
Who looked exactly the same.
“Why do you look so different but Mal is the same?”
Cassie smiled and gave a decisive nod. “Excellent. You’ve passed the first test.”
“The first?”
“The first of many,” she said with mock severity. “You’re bound as my apprentice now.”
“But I never agreed to that.”
“If you didn’t want this in your heart, you would see me as no different than I was before. Your heart knows what your head denies. For your first task, you must bring heart and head into alignment.”
Bryce eyed her warily. “How exactly do I do that?”
“You learn.” She held out her hand. “My walking stick, Davey.” After David passed her the cane, she stumped to the patio doors and glared at Bryce. “Well? Give me your arm, boy. Show me what you’ve labored on these four years and more.”
Bryce exchanged a glance with Mal, who raised an eyebrow. However, he offered his arm to Cassie and stepped outside.
And nearly fell on his ass.
The landscape he thought he’d known so well was transformed. Greens more vibrant, yellows and whites nearly luminous, the blue of the sky almost artificial in its intensity.
“What is this?”
She cackled like a contented hen. “Your druid sight. Don’t worry. You’ll grow used to it.”
“Do I have to? It’s not just sight though—it’s everything.” Without looking, he was conscious of Mal and David crossing the patio, of the difference between Mal’s firm tread and David’s lighter step.
He led Cassie forward, drawn to the edge of the slough by a sound like silver striking glass. It’s the creek, tumbling over the rocks. And the birds—he could make out the voices of each one as they flitted from tree to tree. The rustle of small animals in the underbrush, the secret swish of fish under the water. Hell, if I concentrate, I bet I could understand the wind soughing through the cattails.
He grinned, joy threatening to lift him off the ground. “It’s like a glorious synesthesia. I can hear the scent of the pines. Smell the color of the water. I—”
Wait. There, near the reeds where he’d spotted the dead fish earlier—Christ, had it been this morning? Underneath the glitter of sun on the water’s surface crept a bilious yellow current.
“Do you see that? What is it?”
Cassie looked at the spot where he pointed. “Something that doesn’t belong, not in this world.” She turned and pointed imperiously at Mal. “Lord Maldwyn. Tell me of your injury.”
“Unseelie redcaps. At least three. Two got me from the back when yon baby druid distracted me.”
She tsked. “You are losing your touch, sulking out here on your own.”
“It’s not my choice. I’d be back at court if I could.”
“Pfaugh. You could find a way if
you put your mind to it.”
Bryce tore his gaze from the creeping blight as another fish went belly up in the reeds. “What are you talking about? And what can we do about that—that thing?”
“We are talking of that thing now, you impatient boy, if only you would listen with your eyes open.”
What? “That makes no sense. What’s ‘Unseelie’? Is it some kind of poison that someone’s dropped into the water?”
“Poison.” Mal snorted. “That’s one way to put it.”
Cassie rounded on him. “Lord Maldwyn, you are not helping, and if you are not part of the remedy, you are part of the ailment.” She studied him, glancing between him and Bryce. “Hmmm. Perhaps that is the answer.”
“Shite,” he muttered. “When a druid gets that look in their eye, best run like bloody hell.”
Mal wanted to back away before it was too late, torn between self-preservation and acting like a coward in front of David and Bryce. Cassie—hells, she already had his measure. Bloody druid.
“You, Lord Maldwyn, shall be Mr. MacLeod’s tutor in all things supernatural. If he is to be an asset and not a liability, he must learn of our ways, and quickly. We must discover how far the blight has already encroached on this place.”
“Not bloody likely. It’s not in my job description to cater to druids. Why would I want to increase the druid population? There are already too many, in my opinion.”
“All due respect, ma’am, but I’ve worked on my own for years.” Bryce shot Mal an irritated glance. “I don’t need a study buddy, let alone an involuntary one. I’ve got this.”
She jabbed her cane into the ground. “You do not. If you had served your apprenticeship when you ought, between your thirteenth and eighteenth year, you would have no need of . . . a remedial tutor. But as it is?”
She bent and plucked a blade of fescue from the edge of the pool. With remarkable dexterity for someone with fingers like knobby twigs, she tied a tiny knot in each end, then held it in the palm of her hand and blew on it. The little twist of grass rose, higher and higher, until it was snatched out of the air by a passing sparrow.
“What was that in aid of?” Mal growled.
Cassie laced her fingers on the head of her cane, her druid-black gaze spearing first him and then Bryce. “The two of you have much to learn.”
“I know everything I want to know, thank you,” Mal said. “Chief among them: never get involved with druids. There’s always a catch.”
“You are a man of action, Lord Maldwyn, not a man of thought and contemplation. This cripples you far more than the lack of your sword hand.” She turned to Bryce. “And you, Bryce MacLeod. You deny your instincts, depending instead on the results of this data you collect. Neither of you will succeed in your quests unless you learn what the other has to offer. So. You will now learn. Whether you will it or no.”
She held out an imperious hand. “Davey, I’m ready to go.”
“So am I,” muttered Mal, and took off up the slope toward his patio. He got barely ten feet when a tug in his middle, as if a hook were embedded behind his navel, startled him to a stop. What the— He glanced behind him: at Cassie, who was leaning on her cane, her expression too bland to be innocent; at Bryce, whose hand was pressed against his own midsection. Bugger this. He took another step, and the pull turned insistent, uncomfortable. Two, and it flared into a burn so sharp that his knees gave out. Shite.
He levered himself to his feet, set his jaw, and broke toward his house again, but he managed only a few more feet before the pain in his belly erupted as if he’d been impaled by a poisoned lance. Bryce’s gasp and moan told Mal he wasn’t the only one afflicted.
Bugger this. I won’t dance to a druid’s piping. He gritted his teeth, the pain nearly whiting out his vision, and leaped. Bryce cried out and fell forward onto his knees as Mal was yanked backward onto his ass as if he’d been landed like a bloody sturgeon. For a moment, he lay blinking at the sky, chest heaving with his labored breath. Then he crawled down the hill until the pain receded enough to allow him to stand.
Bryce struggled to his feet as well, still far enough down the slope that his every move tweaked the invisible hook in Mal’s belly, although the sensation wavered between tug and burn rather than skewer and eviscerate, thanks be to the Goddess.
“Gwydion’s bollocks, woman.” Mal staggered forward until the discomfort vanished completely. “What have you done?”
“Merely made certain that neither of you will shirk your responsibilities.”
Bryce pushed his hair off his forehead with a hand that wasn’t entirely steady. “I take my responsibilities very seriously, and because of that, I can’t agree to this.”
“You accepted the ointment of sight.”
“Yes, but—”
“Then you’ve entered the apprentice contract. Now it’s time to learn what that means.” She pointed her cane at Mal. “You are tasked with teaching Bryce about the hidden worlds. It will be good for you. Give you some purpose until you accept the conditions of your exile.”
“Accept it? Not bloody likely.”
“You must accept it before you can resolve it.” She turned to Bryce. “I’ll send you some recipes for remedies that your grandmother might not have shared with you.”
Bryce brushed at the grass stains on his ridiculous tactical pants. “I really don’t think—”
“Then you should. Come, Davey.”
She marched up the slope, leaning on David’s arm, spearing the ground with her cane on every other step.
“Wait just a bloody minute.” Mal charged after her and once again got pulled up short by whatever evil spell she’d used to shackle him to his proto-druid neighbor. “Shite.”
“If you don’t mind, Mal, I’d prefer not to have my guts yanked out by an invisible harpoon. Could you please, by anything you hold holy, stop trying?”
Mal grimaced, running his hand through his hair. “A point. Sorry.”
Bryce stumbled up the slope until he was level with Mal. He waved his hand between their bodies as if he were testing for hidden wires. “There’s nothing there, nothing in the air, but there’s clearly some kind of tether connecting us.”
“Druid magic. Lesson one, mate.”
“So we’re prisoners in some kind of magical chain gang?”
Mal barked a laugh. “Something like that.”
A look of hurt flickered across Bryce’s face. “I thought . . . she seemed so nice at first.”
“Lesson two—druids are never nice. There’s always a fecking catch.” He gestured to Bryce’s midsection. “And as catches go, the old witch has outdone herself this time.”
He headed toward his back door, but since Bryce stayed rooted in place, Mal was forced to stop after he reached the end of their metaphysical leash—about ten feet, give or take. He sighed and turned around. “I don’t know about you, mate, but I could use a drink. You can join me, or you can brood while you watch me down a pint or two, but either road, you need to come with me unless you enjoy the feeling of being eviscerated.”
“Why do I have to come with you? Why don’t you come with me?”
“I told you. I want a drink.”
“Well, I want to check out that poisoned area in the wetlands. I need to run some tests, take some measurements. Hell . . .” He tore off his glasses and pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes. “Just looking at it with these freakish new perceptions could give me information I’d never dreamed of before.”
“Thrilling as that sounds, I’m opting for the beer.”
His eyes narrowed. “I thought you were supposed to tutor me.”
“We can start with what kind of beer I prefer.”
“I don’t think that’s what she had in mind.”
“I don’t bloody care what she had in mind. She’s a druid.” Mal kicked at a tuft of grass, which sprang back immediately. Fecking stuff was as annoyingly tenacious as Bryce. “Their minds are twistier than the road to the underworld.”
“I wasn’t talking about you.”
“No? But aren’t I a druid now?”
Mal sighed. “Look on the bright side. If I refuse to tutor you, maybe she’ll declare your apprentice contract null because you’re too ignorant for her purposes.”
“You’re trying to weasel out of this, aren’t you?”
“Hells yes. Aren’t you?”
Bryce turned and gazed out over the wetlands. Mal could just imagine what he was seeing now—his first true glimpse of the etheric energy that bound everything in nature. Until Mal’s exile from Faerie had deadened his own sight, he hadn’t realized how much he’d taken that sight for granted. Not only had he lost the ability to detect glamourie, but he could no longer perceive the etheric sparkle that imbued the landscape.
“You know, I don’t think I am. My grandmother was the most important person in my life. I worshipped her as a child, maybe because she was the only person in my family who seemed to give a damn about me. If this is what she was—if this is who I am—I want to find out everything I can about it. And if I have a . . . a birthright, a legacy from her? There’s nobody else I’d rather be heir to.”
“Touching. Now about that beer . . .”
“It’ll still be there later. Come on.” Bryce took off down the hill.
“Damn it man, hold up.” If Mal didn’t want to engage in an undignified—and painful—tug-of-war on the back lawn, he had no choice but to follow. “You’ll pay for this, boyo,” he muttered, struggling to keep the distance between them to under ten feet. He had no desire to get dunked in the swamp because Bryce decided to take an unexpected sharp turn.
When Bryce halted suddenly, Mal nearly plowed into his backside.
“What the hell is that?” Bryce’s voice broke on the last word.
The Druid Next Door Page 5
